Users of modern day computer systems and networks are imposing increasing demands on such systems to perform wider varieties and larger quantities of work. Because of these demands, it is becoming important to structure the work of a job in some organized form for processing. A “batch job” is one organized form in which work may be structured. A batch job may be any combination or grouping of files, documents or other information that work is to be performed on. The work is generally divided into a predefined series of tasks for processing.
Modern computing systems and networks provide for new and different kinds of work which are amenable to batch job processing. For example, the job of converting a group of word processing documents having the same format to an HTML format may be organized as a batch job. In this way, the user may simply specify a single set of parameters for converting all of the documents in the group, as opposed to performing the repetitious task of having to specify the same parameters for each and every document.
Batch jobs are to be contrasted with actions or commands in interactive applications which often require only a single function or key stroke to complete the entire job. For example, a “cut” or “paste” technique provided by a word processor program is one such command. Immediate feedback is possible with commands like cut or paste. After a user selects some text in a document, the cut operation is performed by a single press of a mouse button or function key on a computer keyboard. The user can immediately see the change to the document he is editing.
A batch job is more complex than single-function commands, because the batch job permits a variety of services to be combined. The individual tasks comprising the batch job are often different from one another, each requiring a different processing technique or function for completion. The various functions needed to perform the batch job nay only be available from different sources. For example, several applications or programs may be necessary, some or all of which may be operating on different machines. Thus, immediate results often cannot be obtained when the batch job is processed because of the number of different services which must be performed to process the various tasks, the coordination and sequencing of these services, and various delays associated with performing the particular services.